SIMP Enterprise Edition in Vagrant

• SIMP Enterprise Edition in Vagrant
  • Prerequisites
  • Getting started
    • Set the SIMP_LICENSE_KEY environment variable
    • Set the SIMP_AGENTS environment variable
    • Optional environment variables
    • Run vagrant up
    • Manual configuration
    • Shutting down
  • Using the Bolt plan on real servers
  • Known issues
    • Windows agents with Fedora's vagrant package
    • CentOS 8 agents with VirtualBox

Prerequisites

You need to have the following installed:

• Vagrant
• A virtualization provider for Vagrant such as VirtualBox
• Bolt

Getting started

Set the SIMP_LICENSE_KEY environment variable

Set the environment variable SIMP_LICENSE_KEY to the contents of a valid SIMP EE license key.

For example, if your license key is in the file license.key, the following command can be used:

export SIMP_LICENSE_KEY=$( cat license.key )

NOTE: Without this environment variable set, the Bolt plan will set up SIMP Community Edition on the SIMP server and will skip the Console/Scanner setup.

Set the SIMP_AGENTS environment variable

Set the SIMP_AGENTS environment variable to a space-separated list of agent nodes to manage with Vagrant.

The following agent types are defined:

• win2012r2
• win2016
• win2019
• centos7
• centos8
• oel7
• oel8
• rhel7
• rhel8

(The full list can be seen (or modified) in Vagrantfile.)

For example, to start a Windows 2019 agent and a CentOS 7 agent, use the following command:

export SIMP_AGENTS='win2019 centos7'

NOTE: Without this environment variable set, Vagrant will start all defined agents. This will require a large amount of RAM, and many of the agent types have not been tested and likely will not work.

Optional environment variables

The following environment variables can be set if the defaults are not desirable:

• VAGRANT_IP_SUBNET: The private IP subnet used to communicate between the VMs. Defaults to 10.10.16.
• VAGRANT_DOMAIN: The DNS domain name used by the VMs. Defaults to simp-ee.test.
• BOLT_VERBOSE: Enable verbose output in the Bolt plan.
• BOLT_TRACE: Enable error stack traces from the Bolt plan.
• BOLT_STREAM: Enable streaming output from Bolt scripts and commands.
• SIMP_RELEASE: Override /etc/yum/vars/simprelease on the SIMP server.
• SIMP_RELEASETYPE: Override /etc/yum/vars/simpreleasetype on the SIMP server.
• SIMP_EE_RELEASE: Override /etc/yum/vars/ee_simprelease on the SIMP server.
• SIMP_EE_RELEASETYPE: Override /etc/yum/vars/ee_simpreleasetype on the SIMP server.
• SIMP_RHSM_USER: Username for registering RHEL nodes with subscription management.
• SIMP_RHSM_PASS: Password for registering RHEL nodes with subscription management.

Run vagrant up

Finally:

vagrant up

The process takes nearly 30 minutes on a fast system with only 2 agents defined, so be prepared to wait.

Once the Console has started, it will be available at http://localhost:6468/.

Manual configuration

The remaining configuration is manual.

1. Retrieve the registration token, MSI package URL, and RPM package URL from http://localhost:6468/#infrastructure-client.
2. Configure the simp_scanner Puppet module.

   bolt plan run simp_ee::scanner -t all \
       token='<registration token>' \
       msi_pkg='<MSI package URL>' \
       rpm_pkg='<RPM package URL>'
   

   Be sure to substitute console.simp-ee.test for localhost in the package URLs!
3. Run puppet agent -t on all nodes.
4. Run simp-scanner scan on all nodes.

Shutting down

vagrant destroy -f will stop all VMs and delete them.

Please note: If you have any Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, you should run

bolt plan run simp_ee::rhsm_unregister -t 'rhel*'

before running vagrant destroy. Otherwise you will need to remove the nodes from https://access.redhat.com/management/systems or your local Red Hat Satellite manually.

Using the Bolt plan on real servers

The Bolt plan that is used to build out the environment in Vagrant should work with real systems, although this has not been tested.

1. Set the SIMP_LICENSE_KEY as described above.
2. On the SIMP server, set the role fact to puppet. This can be done with the following commands:

   mkdir -pv /etc/facter/facts.d
   echo role=puppet > /etc/facter/facts.d/role.txt
   

   If the name of the SIMP server starts with puppet, this step can be skipped.
3. On the SIMP Console server, set the role fact to console. This can be done with the following commands:

   mkdir -pv /etc/facter/facts.d
   echo role=console > /etc/facter/facts.d/role.txt
   

   If the name of the SIMP Console server starts with console, this step can be skipped.
4. Run the Bolt plan with the targets specified on the command line:

   bolt plan run simp_ee -t simpserver,consoleserver,agent1,agent2
   

Known issues

Windows agents with Fedora's vagrant package

Windows agents will not work with the Fedora-supplied vagrant package. The required winrm gem is not available and some of its dependencies will not resolve with vagrant plugin install.

Either omit the Windows agents from the SIMP_AGENTS environment variable or switch to Hashicorp's vagrant package.

CentOS 8 agents with VirtualBox

CentOS 8 agents seem to hang when running under VirtualBox.

Either omit centos8 agents from the SIMP_AGENTS environment variable or switch to another virtualization provider.